The government says lions are endangered. Here's why that's a good thing.
Two subspecies of lions were just added to the government's list of endangered species.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced on Dec. 21 that two subspecies of lion will be granted new federal protections as endangered species. One, found in central-to-western Africa and India, will be listed as endangered. The other, found in eastern-to-southern Africa, will be listed as threatened.
But it's actually good news.
Image via BBC.
This is a way for the U.S. government to put new restrictions around trophy hunting.
The government can't regulate what other countries do with their animals. So if countries like Zimbabwe want to let hunts continue, the U.S. can't stop them.
But the government can make it less appealing for Americans to participate in the kind of trophy hunts, such as the one that let a now-infamous dentist shoot and kill Cecil the lion earlier this year. His death caused an international uproar, which you may remember.
Now hunters will find it a lot harder to get any trophies they do kill back into the U.S. Many will be outright prohibited. Hunting permits will also be stricter and more expensive.
"The lion is one of the planet's most beloved species and an irreplaceable part of our shared global heritage," said Dan Ashe, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "If we want to ensure that healthy lion populations continue to roam the African savannas and forests of India, it's up to all of us — not just the people of Africa and India — to take action."
As their new listing suggests, lions are having a tough time lately.
In the last 10,000 years, lions have disappeared from the majority of their historical range.
Image from Tommyknocker/Wikimedia Commons.
And it's not been any better in the last few decades. Habitat loss, hunting, and other threats have wiped out about 40% of lions over the last 21 years. It's estimated that less than 40,000 adult lions remain.
One of the places they usually receive some modicum of protection is in national parks.
That's why Cecil's case was so devastating. Cecil had been living in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, where he was a bit of a celebrity and part of a group of lions that University of Oxford had been studying for years. But instead of being safe, Cecil was lured out of the park and killed.
This action gives lions the same federal protections that has helped save animals like the bald eagle from extinction.
During the 1960s, it was estimated that only about 400 nesting pairs of bald eagles were left in the lower 48 states. But the government took action, using regulations and other measures to protect the birds. The population bounced back, and now there are nearly 10,000 pairs in the contiguous U.S.
So hopefully, adding these kind of protections to lions might put them back on the road to recovery as well. Many lion cousins — tigers, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, and cougars — are already waiting for them in the circle of protection.
Conservation groups petitioned the government to protect lions a few years ago, but the government says their decision was mostly based on new scientific data about lion populations and genetics.
This action will hopefully take a bit of the edge off the hunting pressure and help to keep lions around for a long time. Which makes me feel all:
Image from "The Lion King."
A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via 
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
- YouTube youtube.com
Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.